A very wide swath of east Honduras is blank on most maps. A dense mass of rainforest called the Mosquitia covers almost 32,000 square miles. And almost no one knows what is inside it, if anything at all.
But some have been scouring the forest for signs of the legendary Ciudad Blanca, the White City. And some others believe they might have found it.
A team of researchers and archeaologists are getting ready to fly out from Cancun, Mexico in the hope of exploring a square space of the forest that does not fit with its basic geology. LiDAR radar technology mapped an area in the forest that looks like the remnants of a network of an ancient city, with pyramids and squares.
The reason for the search stems from an apparent mention by conquistador Cortes in 1526, who wrote of it in a letter to Charles V, then emperor of Spain. Another man, Theodore Morde, in 1940 also claimed to have seen the city. Apparently, he had been told of it by aviator C. Lindbergh, who said he saw what looked like the ruins of a once splendid city, when he flew over the forest. The location however, remained a mystery after Morde was killed in an auto accident.
To prevent potential looting, the site's location has not been revealed. But the LiDAR scans promise to blow open the doors of Central America's lost archeaology.
Source: The Independent 5.14.13
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